Monday, 27 April 2015

Costume and Fashion: A Concise History - James Laver

Bonus review! (The Chronicles of
Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever,
while very good, is also extremely long, being a trilogy in one
book. A friend saw me reading it at lunch today and suggested
it might also double as a self-defense item, on the grounds that it
would probably stop a knife or bullet.)

I got this book from the library on a
whim. I've never had much interest in fashion in the modern sense,
but I find historical clothing fascinating as a part of life in
general throughout the past.

This book had a little less explanation
of the factors that led to changes in clothing than I'd hoped, but to
be fair it had a lot of ground to cover, and does actually call
itself a concise history in the title. There were brief explanations
as to motivating factors for change, and very detailed timelines with
a lot of wonderful illustrations.

Pivotal changes such as cross-cultural
invasions, trading routes, and inventions that led to changes in
clothing and fashion all link in to the developments that took place.
Although it's a lot of information to take in on casual reading (and
I have to admit I did mostly skip through the final chapter about
modern fashion and designers) I feel more as though I can watch a
period drama or look at a painting and pinpoint more exactly which
time period it presents, and know which details to watch out for.